{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4206", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 4206, "subject": "mostly OT: Herodotus", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2003-09-07T00:22:17+00:00", "last": "2003-09-11T03:32:28+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lisa Schaffer-Doggett", "address": "harlekin at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2003-09-07T00:22:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) mostly OT: Herodotus", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hey everyone,\n\nI just want everyone to know that I'm having a damned entertaining time \nreading Herodotus. I'm beginning book three and I don't know if it's \nthe translation (U of Chicago, by David Grene) or what, but it's really \ngreat. It reads like an engaging classroom lecture or sitting room \nconversation. Herodotus easily holds his own with any writer past or \npresent. His style, that of recording what people thought of their \npast, calls to mind an excellent book that I'd like to recommend: \n\"Deus Lo Volt! Chronicle of the Crusades\" by Evan S. Connell. He \nalso wrote \"Son of the Morning Star\" about the battle of Little Bighorn \n(a blow by blow account that manages to digress in huge arcs into a \ncomprehensive history of the Indian Wars without ever losing sight of \nthe main story. An amazing book.) Anyway, \"Deus Lo Volt!\" is \ncategorized as historical fiction but what it really is is the \nshoehorning of a gazillion primary sources into a comprehensive \nnarrative of the Crusades from the first to the last. It's narrator is \nJean de Joinville, a knight of Saint Louis, the last real Crusader. \nAll of the conversations and monologues are paraphrases of recorded \nencounters. It is a beautiful book, well written and engaging, and \ndefinitely a history in the Herodotian sense, albeit a counterfeit one.\n\nDon" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "matthew.malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "2003-09-09T10:17:05+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) mostly OT: Herodotus", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 07/09/2003 01:22:17 Lisa Schaffer-Doggett wrote:\npast, calls to mind an excellent book that I'd like to recommend:\n\"Deus Lo Volt! Chronicle of the Crusades\" by Evan S. Connell. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Anyway, \"Deus Lo Volt!\" is\ncategorized as historical fiction but what it really is is the\nshoehorning of a gazillion primary sources into a comprehensive\nnarrative of the Crusades from the first to the last. It's narrator is\nJean de Joinville, a knight of Saint Louis, the last real Crusader.\nAll of the conversations and monologues are paraphrases of recorded\nencounters. It is a beautiful book, well written and engaging," }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I found \"Deus Lo Volt!\" deeply irritating. The faux-chronicle style \nmaddening. The inconclusive narrative frustrating, very far from \ncomprehensive.\n\nParticularly nauseating (although possibly not the author's fault) was \nit's publication by an imprint whose principal line is historical work and \nwith publicity that downplayed its fictional aspect to the point of \ninvisibilty: go took at Amazon.co.uk which categorizes it as history, \nEurope, Vikings, Dark Ages, Medieval Europe 501-1500.\n\nMatthew" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Don Doggett", "address": "harlekin at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2003-09-11T03:32:28+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) mostly OT: Herodotus", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Tuesday, September 9, 2003, at 03:17 AM, \nmatthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk wrote:\nI found \"Deus Lo Volt!\" deeply irritating. The faux-chronicle style\nmaddening. The inconclusive narrative frustrating, very far from\ncomprehensive." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "We're just on opposite ends here. I love counterfeit history/religious \ndocuments. I want to write one myself someday. Something with Elvis I \nthink. To each his own though." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Particularly nauseating (although possibly not the author's fault) was\nit's publication by an imprint whose principal line is historical work \nand\nwith publicity that downplayed its fictional aspect to the point of\ninvisibilty: go took at Amazon.co.uk which categorizes it as history,\nEurope, Vikings, Dark Ages, Medieval Europe 501-1500." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That sounds like Amazon's fault. It says very clearly on the cover of \nmy copy \"A Novel by Evan S. Connell\". Plus I found mine in fiction. \nOh well, back to Wolfe.\n\nDon\n " } ] } ] }